Five Ways To Create A Greener Office

The majority of businesses understand the necessity for a greener approach, and here at 20six we have been actively encouraging and promoting sustainable solutions for all forms of commercial property refurbishment and maintenance. It doesn’t need to be a huge financial undertaking on your part to make your current office environment more sustainable but there are areas that you can look into to help make your work place greener.

Of course, if you are planning on a major refurbishment of your commercial interiors then getting the greener approach in at the beginning will make life a lot easier, but if you just want to make a few changes we hope that you’ll find at least some aspects of the list we have compiled helpful.

5 Ways To Achieve a Greener Office:

Let There Be Light: Studies have demonstrated that workers who are able to have natural day light in their offices are happier and less susceptible to fatigue. Having natural light will help shave costs of your energy bills and create a more productive work force. When daylight isn’t an option there are energy saving LEDs and you can install automated switch offs to lights when a room is vacant, or you can encourage “best practice” among your workers by getting everybody to turn off lights when they are not required.

A Splash Of Colour: A quick way of sprucing up your work space is to give it a new lick of paint. This can help brighten the space, make it look less shabby, more loved, and can give your environment a new lease of life. There are eco-friendly paints that you can use for this, the best of which are plant-based, water-borne paints, followed by plant-based, solvent-borne ones with natural solvents. Not only will they be better for the environment, but they won’t give off any unpleasant smells or cause any breathing issues among staff.

If Walls Could Breathe: Modern houses have to meet strict guidelines for insulation, but some of us are less lucky in our older offices. If an office fit out is on the horizon, make sure you think about insulation – both for temperature control and for noise. Ensuring that your offices are at an ambient temperature by properly insulating them will save you a load off your energy bills. If this is not an option for you there are still ways in which you can tackle temperature issues and address noise problems at the same time, such as eco-friendly panels, partitions and cladding.

Put Down Roots: Adding plants to commercial buildings has become really popular of late – and with good reason. In an ideal world you’d have the budget to add a living roof or wall (both of which can provide the insulation we mentioned above), or convert and outside space to create a garden, but this isn’t suitable for all companies. What pretty much most of can do though is to add more plants within the office. The addition of plants to a work space has been shown to boost productivity as well as to help purify the air.

Teach and Learn: Having everybody singing from the same song sheet will help your overall strategy for creating a more sustainable office, so ensure that all your staff are aware of the company policy towards the environment. What are you throwing away, what more can you recycle? Are we all turning lights, taps and unused equipment off? Where are we buying our products, our office furniture, our stationary from and can those who supply us provide greener alternatives? If you can get the entire company on board even the little changes will go a long way to achieving a greener office.